My Byet control panel is open in my other tab right now. I have unlimited bandwidth and unlimited disc space, sub-domains, add-on domains, parked domains and MySQL databases. Now inodes available is only 30019, and there seems to be some limit on FTP files I can upload, in size and volume. My daily hits limit is 50000. I just started this account a few days ago and probably won't do anything with it. I'm bored with websites. It was more or less a creative process for me. I wasn't looking for massive attention.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Jun 28, 2020 3:02 pmAlthough I'm just starting but I want a site that can handle a good amount of traffic from the start. Here's a little more background on my case:
I have very basic knowledge of HTML and FTP although I bought books to learn more. I want a site that can handle a good amount of traffic from the start. I want features similar to that of religiousforums.com. I also need server and forum site support.
I posted there for a year or two. The forum, if I recall, was sort of quirky but all of them can be that. They don't have an actual website so it isn't like you need a great deal in the design department. The forum itself is pretty much right out of the box, isn't it? In the time I was posting there their forum was down more often than my free website. You're right about one thing, though, you won't get any support. You are on your own, but I never really needed any. Usually if something went wrong it was because I screwed it up. It always turned out to be some obvious little mistake on my part that I couldn't see.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Jun 28, 2020 3:02 pmYou will not get that for free.
- For starters a good server with unlimited bandwidth/disk space will cost you, and that's annually.
If you say so.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Jun 28, 2020 3:02 pm - A domain name with privacy feature (I don't want everyone knowing my name/contact info.) will cost you.
Domain name approximately $16 a year, privacy $19.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Jun 28, 2020 3:02 pm- Plug ins will cost you, and that assumes that it even has support for it
Byet has phpBB, SMF, MyBB, AEF, Vanilla, PunBB, XMB, FluxBB, Phorum, bbPress, ElkArte, FUDforum, miniBB, LayerBB, Carbon Forum, my little forum, Beehive, TangoBB and Unclassified NewsBoard. All free. Now, most of those I wouldn't have anything to do with, but the phpBB and SMF I've used and like very much. I don't recall ever paying for any mods or plugins etc.
I don't know about support. I've heard people who haven't the experience complaining about support at every place, free or paid, I've been to. There's a difference between support and figure out what I did wrong and fix my mess ups. But, if you are paying for a developer support shouldn't be a huge problem because in all likelihood the need will be on your end, not the hosts.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Jun 28, 2020 3:02 pm- currently I'm using a web developer for troubleshooting, routine maintenance, and hopefully some custom features so that will cost me.
Yeah. It will. It would likely be worth it if you have little experience or even if you had experience but didn't want to muck about with all of that so long as you can afford it. I don't know about plugins for the type of board they're running over there at religiousforums.com, but it looks generic out of the box. Just set it up, tweak it, and go.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Jun 28, 2020 3:02 pmBut this is just the financial costs. How about quality:
- Time spent moderating conversations
- time spent participating
- time spent troubleshooting
- time spent attracting people to your site
- time spent making a site someone wants to be a part of.
I can assure you, just spending 5 mins. a day on a site won't cut it, esp. when you start getting a lot of members.
I once spent $500 on Facebook ads and $500 on Google ads. Complete waste. I even had the expert staff at Google composing and arranging the ads. Nothing. I used to do everything by the book. HTML validated, social nonsense (I hate that stuff) domain name, etc. Nothing. I bought into all of the scams and so-called experts who say it has to be done this way .... Nothing. SEO to the book, etc.
I had thousands of people visiting my site from over 230 countries but what really did boost my real visitors was the Skeptic's Annotated Bible linking to each of my pages. An established website that's been around for years and gets good traffic. Real traffic. Not spiders, bots, or surfers that are gone in less than a second. Most of any website's traffic is just that. If you watch that stuff closely you see that you aren't really getting as many "people" on your site as you might think.
Alexa used to be good at watching that. I don't know about anymore because I don't care about that stuff anymore.
The most difficult thing by far is getting a membership on a new forum that isn't established. You can have the nicest forum on the Web and it doesn't matter, especially if it's a subject that people aren't interested in discussing.
The most annoying thing is listening to members complaining about someone for no more real reason than they can't defend their position and they just want to get rid of any disagreement. I've no tolerance for that, on my side or the other. Weak minded tattletales. Snitches. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. No, really, please go. But, there you go. I'm not the diplomat.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Jun 28, 2020 3:02 pmIn fact, I think the time spent in creating and sustaining a good environment for members is the hardest work. You are essentially a manager since you're managing a site. With that alone I would say otseng deserves donations. And I'm saying this all while I've had some disagreement with him, esp. when it comes to rule #5.
If anyone says that it is easy and cheap, I think it's best to show that by showing us how your forum operates, assuming it has lots of members to begin with.
Yeah, but you may find that that membership has little to do with all of that. Of course, you should do it the way you think it ought to be done, but it would be a shame for you to get your expectations up and blow a ton of cash on it thinking that will do it. For membership you have to have friends who are willing to support you by posting. The only trouble is they are usually committed to a forum already. Plus if you can get it, have a good ranking site link (promote) your forum.
I wish you the best.